Carolyn Hitt: Miranda Hart backlash is anything but Chummy

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone who achieves success, popularity and critical acclaim one year is there to be shot off their platform in a hail of mean-spirited media gunfire the next.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone who achieves success, popularity and critical acclaim one year is there to be shot off their platform in a hail of mean-spirited media gunfire the next.

2013 is barely five days old and Miranda Hart – the comedic darling of 2012 – is being sniped at from everywhere. Her crime? A best-selling memoir, the most-watched programme of Boxing Day and the second most popular programme of New Year’s Day, presumably.

She’s been grudgingly allowed to keep the credit for her performance as the loveable Chummy in Call The Midwife but her eponymous sit-com has been subjected to the bitchiest of backlashes.

When Hart was barely on the pop culture radar it was de trop to drop her name. “I first heard her on Radio 4, yah.” Now she’s everywhere, however, it’s cool to be the one who “just doesn’t get Miranda”.

The Telegraph’s Bryony Gordon muses: “One of the great unsolved mysteries of our time must be the continued success of BBC One’s Miranda…Every time it wins an award I tune in to see what all the fuss is about, and every time I not only fail to see what the fuss is about but I am also left wondering why a fuss isn’t made about how criminally unfunny it is.”

In The Daily Mail, Christopher Stevens accuses the sitcom of sexism: “Nor does Miranda do much to challenge BBC prejudices against women when its cast features so many stock characters from the monstrous regiment of two-dimensional females.”

Andrew Billen in The Times goes even further, claiming Hart’s creation is based on a hatred of women. “Miranda is misogynist,” he writes. “I cite not merely the self-hating Miranda character herself: but her Miranda-hating shrew of a mother, her infantilised, Sylvanian-family collecting colleague Steve and her gormless Sloane pal Tilly.”

What politically correct claptrap. These chaps might think their metrosexual chest-beating will endear them to the sisterhood but they’ve completely missed the point and the appeal of Miranda.

It’s a silly, loveable, slapstick comedy not a documentary on the trials of single thirtysomethings with body issues and overbearing mothers. And far from hating her generously proportioned 6ft 1in frame, Miranda – like many physical comedians and visually distinctive sit-com characters before her – exploits it to the full.

Bigness to Miranda is what smallness is to Ronnie Corbett, specs were to Eric Morecambe, and gangly legs were to John Cleese. Clumsiness is part of her comic armoury. Plus while her body may provide her character with any number of visual gags – from getting stripped by a taxi door to being wedged on a sushi conveyor belt – its shape never prevents her character believing she’ll snare a hot date. Miranda’s alter ego projects the most delicious bravura. It’s a quality that makes the show particularly appealing to teenage girls. Thank God. They barely have anyone to relate to beyond Kim Kardashian, Cheryl Cole and Rhianna. No wonder my 14-year-old niece and her friends love it.

This was echoed by the experience of one of the many fans who have sprung to Miranda’s defence this week. “Teens adore her mad confidence, the fact that she’s not skinny blonde perfect, that she celebrates the imperfect,” commented Meg Rosoff.

As for the other female characters, after years of playing the same central casting English ice maiden, Patricia Hodge is having the time of her life with a role that finally showcases her gift for making people laugh. Sally Phillips, meanwhile, is one of the most accomplished comic actresses of her generation and you have to go all the way back to her debut sketch show Smack The Pony to find a precedent for female-dominated entertainment.

And this is the whacking great irony of accusing Miranda, of all shows, of being anti-women. Why are these critics wasting ink on such ridiculous claims when so much of British comedy is saturated with sexism and misogyny.

How often do the producers of panel shows consider the talents of funny women and the interests of half their viewing public when they populate these programmes with smug, self-satisfied, sneering blokes with dubious tax arrangements.

If they had working class accents and wore nylon dress shirts and velvet dickie bows television executives would send them packing back to 1974 but make a sexist joke with your clique of Notting Hill cronies and you’re cutting edge.

As for those who trendily wonder why nine million people watched Miranda on Boxing Day it’s because it’s warm, daft and funny and can be enjoyed without worrying that it will damage your kids and horrify your Nan.

But most of all it’s the perfect antidote to the male-dominated malice that passes for comedy on so many other shows.

So keep falling over Miranda but don’t let them knock you off your pedestal. The snipers will soon move on anyway, targeting their next likeable and successful female with a backlash of spite. Look out Clare Balding, eh?

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